CHEZERBEY

bright ideas

So we found this great chandelier…oh wait. No, that’s the horrendous thing that came with the house. But really, is it not glorious? Fake plastic dripping wax and real burn marks on the ceiling? What style would you even call this, neo-modified medieval revival?

[Don’t worry, we replaced this beauty long ago.] 

do you know bo?

Yesterday we spent the afternoon shopping for lighting ideas. The result? We found a couch and a coffee table. I guess that’s how it goes.

We’re eyeing a similar configuration from BoConcept to what you see above. We will have just enough space for a chaise + side unit and we love that the fabric options include a durable wool blend. Even though Bailey will not be allowed on any new furniture, we know old habits die hard. So just to be safe, we brought home a swatch and rubbed it on his back. Success! The light brown flecks in the “latte brown” wool help camouflage dog hair. We’ve just started our hunt for new furniture, but this one is definitely a contender. Also, the Indivi 2 line is on sale now through January 31st!

And how about that coffee table?

Two of the panels extend up for fine sofa dining. The third panel hinges open for additional storage. The walnut can also be swapped out for a white lacquer finish…paired with the blue-gray glass and the steel legs we think it would feel right at home at chezerbey!

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We still have a few lighting places to scope out, but we’ll post what’s on our wish list this week.

or how about this? [kitchen design revisited]

Remember those sketchup images that we posted last week? The ones we were all excited about? Well, they are officially old news…put them in your virtual recycling bin because Kyle has busted out some mad sketchup skills on this revised design.

This week we started thinking more about lighting, which led to thinking more about the ceiling, which led to vaulting the ceiling. It’s an idea we’ve tossed around for a while. Originally, our plan was to vault the living room space and do a loft over the back half of the house. Concerns about loft head height and acoustical separation from the bedroom below eventually nixed that idea. But because we will be creating a long and narrow kitchen/dining/living space, we also wanted to avoid the “bowling alley” effect. Here’s what we’re thinking:

We’ll vault the ceiling over the kitchen and dining area. Not only should this do wonders for general volume of the space, but it also allows us to add some skylights. This is our south-facing wall and in Seattle, we’ll take all the light we can get. The vertical window at the dining area is actually an extra window that’s sitting in our basement. We’d been thinking about a way to try to use it and we like the playfulness of the window-to-skylight composition. The skylight “wells” around the glass will be splayed out in an effort to bounce more light into the space. Ideally, with this setup we’ll be able to avoid turning on lights during the day.

The skylight in the kitchen will frame the view of the large Douglas Fir tree in our neighbor’s yard. The metal picture rail at the back splash is for spices and we’ll extend it (visually) to the dining room wall as a place for art, candles, whatever. We’re still working on the lighting design. We like what we have, but we’re just not sure it’s in the budget. But it’s also important to get it right. We know all too well the effects of really bad lighting.

The steel members at the vaulted area are tie rods, which not only look cool (well, to architects at least) but they are necessary to tie the roof structure together since we’ll be removing all the joists in this area. [Similar to what we did at the front porch.] For the vaulted ceiling, we’re thinking about some type of tongue and groove paneling painted white.

This view is standing in the kitchen looking back towards the dining and living area with a glimpse of the bedroom to the right. [The dark wall behind the translucent man is a peek into what will be the 2nd bedroom.] The built-in bench to the left of the table will have extra storage space under the seat.

A similar view with the sliding doors in their closed position.

And there’s the linen drum pendant we saw in the West Elm catalog!  The shelf to the left will double as a guard rail for the stairs down to the basement and a shelving/storage unit. [In a small house, every inch counts!]

And here we are standing at the front door. In the living room, our ceiling joists run north-south so the plan is to first install plywood or some type of subfloor in the attic, then tear out the lath and plaster and leave the joists exposed. We think this will be an interesting expression of the old house and will add a bit of extra height to the space. The piece of furniture between the dining and living area will serve as a room divider and storage space. (The yellow panel will slide over to hide the TV.) The unit will also be on casters so we can push it out of the way if we need to accommodate more people at the table. [Unfortunately, we don’t actually own any of the furniture in this model (except for the table).]  Here’s hoping we find an Eames chair on the side of the road with a “free” sign on it!

So that’s where we’re at. The design is bound to change some more and we still have lots of finishes and materials to finalize, but we really like the direction things are heading.

in the hood

Let’s talk about range hoods (or the lack thereof). The deluxe combo you see below is what came with our house. Before we officially moved in, the range was gone. (Fortunately, a friend of ours had just remodeled his kitchen and sold us his old range for cheap…which was about 100x better than our very questionable product from 1974.) We held off on the range hood, figuring it would be ok for a while since food didn’t actually have to touch it. It’s one of those fancy kinds…where it sucks the air up, runs it through a filter, and then pushes it back out through that vent on the front. Yup, right at eye level.

Excellent.

I even tried to find a replacement filter online, but I’m guessing they stopped making them in 1986. So we persevered…looking forward to the day when we could someday have a real range hood. The kind that moves the grease laden air outside! The kind that does not set off the smoke alarm and send your dog to hide in the bathtub!

But we did even better.

Behold…the 600 CFM dual blower model from Vent-A-Hood. Vent-A-Hood uses a unique venting and filtering technology (they call it a “magic lung”) which means the effective CFM (compared to other similar hoods) is 900 CFM! In addition to its functional impressiveness, we love the clean, simple lines and stainless steel finish.

Photo found here.

We are purchasing the hood through Albert Lee Appliance, the same place we found our range.  Local Seattleites, ask for Tylar Strong (at the Tukwila showroom). He has been a great help.

bathroom details

During our cabinet-scoping trip to IKEA last week, we came home with an unexpected item. You see, IKEA was our last stop for the day and we were starving. After a quick stop to customer service for a  return, we struggled to work our way against the crowd to the cafeteria [trust me, you do not want to stand in our way when we’re hungry and there are swedish meatballs and ligonberry soda involved!]. And that’s when we saw it. Dark blue-gray face, with aluminum hands and a plywood wrap? Was this designed for chezerbey? At $10, we couldn’t pass it up.

Not only was our bathroom in need of some more visual interest, but where better to put a clock when you’re rushing to get out the door each morning?

 

And as part of the continuing effort to work through all the various settings of our new camera, here are a few detail shots of the bathroom. Happy Monday.